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YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

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Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#281
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be so dismissive of Youtube. The youtube recommendation algorithm brings up new and cool content over long period of time, and I cultivated my recommendation feed as such. It's a destination in itself. Sure, you could have a video site that just have a top ten video and a subscription list, but it wouldn't be as compelling. Now. There are a lot of things that youtube could rightfully be criticized for, and…

> The youtube recommendation algorithm brings up new and cool content For you. For kids it brings up amputation videos and seriously weird/predatory shit. Should they be cultivating their recommendation feed better? Try searching for '!' on the homepage. You'll get a mix of kid videos and fucked up animated softcore furry shit. It's been like that for fucking years . For me it brings up Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterso…

> For me it brings up Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson shite constantly, despite my refusal to engage in such content whatsoever. It just figures, hey you like watching video game content so you'll love these smarmy shitheads.

You can watch "adjacent" content—at least according to YouTube—and you'll be fed Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson.

Even if you wanted to see that content, maybe that's as far as you're willing to go, personally. Too bad! You get even more extreme commentators.

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#282
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people believe they themselves cannot be influenced by ads "at all". If they were right, nobody would bother making ads.

And you can prove this, how? If the people making ads can be influenced by ads, why would they ever stop making them? It works for them, doesn't it?

Supposedly all these metrics like "conversions" measure the amount of people convinced by ads.

But there's also the rumor floating around that all of these metrics are just hugely inflated, that these modern ads have in truth rates so miserable that a plain old billboard in the middle of nowhere would serve advertisers better, and that therefore the "modern WWW" is built on a foundation of lies, exagerations, and fake statistics.

Choose your poison.

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#283

https://reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/18gjiqy/youtube_doesnt... So much whining from YouTube addicts. Never seen any ad like this. And I block ads manually all the time for other more 'regular' things. Maybe if you weren't always watching videos about Elon and Crypto you wouldn't see these thrown in the mix. You're the target!

True that! That does not absolve Youtube / Google from anything, however.

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#284

They're all like that. A whole back I reported an obvious real estate scam using Wayne Gretzky and some Blue Jays player (I'm in Canada). The reply was it didn't break any policy. When ads are the primary source of revenue, there's zero incentive to police the platform

> When ads are the primary source of revenue, there's zero incentive to police the platform

And with the promise of impressions (or whatever the equivalent of eyeballs is nowadays) there's little incentive to police the platform for bots.

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#286

Twitter actually has some of the best ad oversight, almost entirely by accident too. Community Notes (formerly Birdwatch) lets users flag tweets that are misleading. Since Ads on Twitter are just normal tweets, they can be fact checked. Twitter's average ad quality has plummeted recently, but most of the scam ads I see have a massive user-added disclaimer outlining how it's a scam. I wonder how this affects the click…

There's no day I go without a phishing attempt by ad on Twitter. The only time I've seen community note on ad is about some game that is apparently quite different from what it is on the ad. IIRC that game is notorious for this and has become a meme.

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#287
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is incentive, but they don't realize it. I know that online ads are often enough scams, so I won't buy anything from those ads. I do have to take effort to ensure that they don't effect me anyway (hint from basic psychology: they do, but I can make that effect less). If they did some work to ensure ads were not scams - I've seen ads for a number of interesting things that I intentionally did not buy because odd…

Most people believe they themselves cannot be influenced by ads "at all". If they were right, nobody would bother making ads.

My brain still has advertising campaigns from 40+ years go in my head. That junk sticks.

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Youtube grew because of piracy and the posting/distribution of copyrighted content. The funny thing is, the second you take a step out of the anglosphere it still hosts an absolute tonne of copyrighted content that no one cares about. Just search for "full film" in Polish and you get lots of full films uploaded as-is and no one is taking them down https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pe%C5%82ny+film

It is really random in the anglosphere. If you type "... full film" you will get the full film sometimes, just not all the time.

I've not searched for full films but have had purported full films come up when search for reviews of or reaction videos for films I've recently watched.

Most of these were (1) a full film, but not the film the title claimed, (2) looked like they were non-HD broadcast TV quality, (3) were not in English, and (4) had a URL overlaying the video which I would guess was to a site where the movie given in the title could be found.

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#290

When you are an ad company then why would you reject the source of revenue?

Because it makes you an accomplice in a crime? I mean, it's not like these things slipped through the system: you were alerted to them, you took an action, you claim you reviewed them, and that you are fine with them. That is basically a statement that you are fine with being complicit in a scam.

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